Amato Animo Animato Animagus
by Soporific Barbiturates
Summary: In which Harry finally completes the process to becoming an Animagus before his Fifth Year begins and life as he knows it takes a sharp 390 km per hour turn. (OotP AU)
1. Chapter 1

_Amato Animo Animato Animagus_

* * *

Harry kept secrets. That was a simple fact. If he was a dragon like the ones in fairytales, secrets would be his hoard.

They weren't the obvious kind of secrets. For example, his parselmouth status, that was never a secret per se, he just didn't have any opportunity to say it. No the secrets he kept were more personal.

Secrecy often saved people. Ever since he had learnt of the Fidelius he had wondered how much better it would have been if the secret keeper was one of his parents. He also wondered how exactly it was possible for anyone to find him or to know about the house in Godric's Hollow where his parents had been murdered and the Dark Lord defeated. After all, Pettigrew hadn't gone about telling people the secret had he? But somehow after it had all been said and done, people knew where it had happened.

It didn't make sense.

Magic didn't make sense.

But magic was his and so he adored it.

And he wanted _more_ , more magic, more _everything_.

Which is why in his fourth year when the Triwizard tournament had him learning magic the likes of which he would have learnt only years later,he decided to become an animagus.

* * *

The animagus was considered a brilliant skill beyond just a complex transfiguration skill for a reason. Not only was it difficult, but it had a _meaning_ , one that a few too many understood and thus feared.

A patronus was a protector. Whatever form it took was important because it was what the caster associated with safety. But an Animagus form, that went far beyond even that connection. Because an Animagus form was a true representation of a person's _soul_.

And that was the secret no one would speak. That they were afraid to be an animagus, afraid to see what form their soul would take. Peter Pettigrew had broken a long time before Voldemort had marked him, he had broken the day he turned into a _rat_.

And Harry had been afraid as well. When Sirius had told him that one day they would work on that skill he had been thrilled to share something with his godfather, to maybe be a bit closer to his father then. But it had taken only a few pages of reading a book on the animagus transformation for the fear to creep in and decide this was something he wanted to do on his own. Harry was terrified at what he would find.

What form did his soul take?

* * *

He had held the mandrake leaf under his tongue as he prepared for the third task. His leaf had been spat into a phial in the view of the light of a clear and full moon and the potion made with painstakingly collected dew untouched by human feet and sunlight and the chrysalis of a death's head hawk moth and a hair of his own. He had put it in a dark and quiet place, a mokeskin pouch he had purchased specifically for this and kept hanging around his neck in a chain and now he waited for an electrical storm.

He had done all of this in secret. He had considered telling Hermione or Sirius about it before but now he thought better of it.

Neither of them had answered his letters properly. They were keeping secrets from him too but they didn't even have the decency to keep them properly, they were dangling the secrets over his head to tease!

No, he wouldn't tell them of this.

* * *

Everyday for the past months, Harry had been chanting Amato Animo Animato Animagus as he woke, and now all his waiting had come to an end. A massive lightning storm was supposed to strike down at Surrey, Vernon had been told not to report to work and since this was happening on a Friday, the Dursleys had decided to go on a little trip to the beach. They had been uneasy leaving the Freak all alone in the house but Vernon had remembered that Harry couldn't cast any magic during the Summertime, taunted him with the knowledge for a while and then made plans.

So there Harry was, watching the clouds overhead churn angrily. He was sat in the largest room in the house, the living room with all the valuables piled in the kitchen and the furniture pushed back to the very corners of the room. As the dark night sky outside, hidden behind closed curtains, lit up with a lightning strike, Harry chanted the incantation one lasts time before draining the phial of the potion.

The effects were not immediate. Harry knew they wouldn't be, the book had said so. It took a while to take effect. In his meditations Harry had seen himself flying so he knew it would be a bird or a bat or something, something warm blooded. If he had seen an amphibian or a reptilian creature the sensation of cold would have taken over him, but a warm blooded animal meant feeling heat running down his body.

It swept through him in waves, with every throb it reached closer to his extremities until finally he felt it all the way down to his toes, and soon he began feeling its effects, losing himself to the lucid dream that would reveal his form to him before he Turned.

He was high above the Forbidden forest in the sky. His wings flapped, once, twice, taking him higher above the treetops and as the Whomping Willow came into sight, he swerved and dipped around its flailing branches playing a game before turning to the lake, soaring over the surface before dipping down to fly almost parallel to it, his talon dragging in the water.

And then he woke.

And then he knew.

The minute he first transformed, nothing would be the same. There would be no home for him, not Hogwarts, not Durzkaban, not the Burrow, nothing. No place would ever be anything but a cage once he knew the freedom of the sky. It pulled and tugged at his soul already calling out to him and he wanted desperately to answer it.

It was a good thing that the thunder and rain outside was loud, drowning out all noises because Harry could not control his screams of pain as his bones shrunk in on themselves, turning hollow, skin separating into feather, head growing smaller and smaller while his nose and mouth grew large, into an avian beak.

The storm still raging outside was the only thing that kept him in place, every single instinct screaming at him to take flight. The little part of his human mind that called this house Durzkaban was now a blaring screech of 'Not safe'. Only the silence in the house, save for a faint scrabble of rat feet outside, told him that the house was empty and slowly, that voice quieted down.

From his place on the rug, Harry took flight and landed on the bannister. Being higher up felt divine but it wasn't enough. Harry took off again, amazed by how easy it seemed to fly. There was no learning curve, just the sweeping sensation of air passing him by. Even when his wingspan was too large to fit within the door he shifted instinctually and turned through the doorway into his room. Hedwig's perch for perfect for him to use now while she was out and about delivering letters.

But as the storm raged on outside and Harry remained unable to fly, he grew antsy. He calmed himself the best he could and thought back, imagining fingers where there were wings, toes where there were talons and lips where there was a beak. The shift was less painful this time around and he would have been fine were it not for the fact that he was still in the perch and he tumbled down to the ground, the perch breaking in half under his weight.

He walked down the stairs put the living room back to the way it was and sat down to watch the news. The skies were supposed to clear up a bit the day after tomorrow. The Dursleys would be back by then but what did that matter?

Yes, he would fly soon.

* * *

The itch got worse the longer Harry had to wait. The Dursleys returned and with them his chores. Some of his animagus form carried over and Harry's eyesight grew a bit clearer, his hearing grew a bit sharper. He used his glasses less often now and could hear the rustle of leaves three gardens away.

Now, he heard voices when he was weeding the garden, voices he had heard before. Moody was nearby. He could hear the man mumbling under his breath, heard him hand over the 'shift' to another. Heard him complain about Fletcher, whoever that was.

But Harry didn't see him at all. Magic, of course, but magic did not change the fact that he had not been asked before being put under watch, did not change the fact that invading his privacy like this was wrong.

And it did not change the fact that there was no way for Harry to change into his animagus form with people watching him so closely.

Harry waited.

* * *

A sudden crack was all the opportunity he needed. He knew that sound, it was of someone apparating but he also knew that the 'shift' didn't end until midnight. Which meant that Harry was no longer being watched.

He took the stairs two at a time to get into his room, put the leather thong with the mokeskin pouch with all his belongings and more importantly his _wand_ around his neck, threw open the windows, made sure no neighbours were looking and _turned_.

Within seconds he was out the window, flying so high over Privet Drive that he could see all the neat little houses and their square spread in Surrey. There was Mrs Figg hobbling around, peering over the hedges of Number four, as if looking for something. There was Dudley's gang and a few streets away were the two cloaked figures that—

That looked uncannily like _Dementors_

Dementors in Surrey?! How was this even possible?

Instinct drove him higher, farther and he sensibly fled the scene, wings carrying him into the wind, long suppressed instincts from many a game of Harry Hunting coming alive.

Harry Potter ran.

* * *

 _Amato Animo Animato Animagus_


	2. Chapter 2

_Amato Animo Animato Animagus_

* * *

It's easy to be a bird. He flies, he perches, he hunts mice and rats when the hunger gets too much and he eats them. It was easy really, even the thought of eating mice grew on him, perhaps because the long flight he took had his hunger grow to desperate levels.

Harry becomes a bird in a way that probably isn't very healthy. The human in him sometimes makes an appearance, but it has been in love with the sky for longer than he has had this form and it doesn't feel like much of a loss to have no opposable thumbs when he has wings.

It doesn't take long for him to forget that he was ever Harry Potter. It makes so much more _sense_ to hunt for himself, to provide for himself. He gets into a few scraps with other birds, sure, but it's still nothing compared to the yearly school incidents he deals with. An entire week passes in this peace until—with an almighty screech— Hedwig descends upon him.

And Hedwig, being a fully-grown female snowy owl was considerably larger than him in this form, and was also clearly _pissed off_.

They indulged in a sort of one-sided fight, Harry unwilling to hurt his first friend in the entire world and Hedwig cuffing him on his head with her wings, screeching loudly. Harry the wizard isn't afraid of her, not at all, but Harry the bird is still running on instinct. When the large wingspan of his owl blocks out the sun, the fear sets in and quickly takes over, instincts screaming at him to get away from the bigger predator, insisting that he is yet too small to be of any danger to her. Harry tumbles out of the tree he was perched on and somewhere along the line the wings turn to hands, the talons to feet, and it is a fully human boy that lands on the ground, bruised and scraped up.

With a soft hoot, Hedwig descends onto the lowest branch and holds out a leg with a multitude of letters attached.

Harry fumbles with the paper, fingers not quite working independently the way they should. He holds them in the fold where his thumb meets his hand and tears them open with his teeth. A laughing hoot from Hedwig helps, makes him think _wizard_ especially when he goes to _cack_ at her but finds that his body is ill suited to such sounds now.

It takes him a few tries, barely managing the 'eh' sound at first but finally in a raspy voice he manages to say "Hedwig" and his owl descends upon his shoulder.

His hands don't work the way he wants them to and he pushes the letter open with the heel of his palm but finally it lies open in front of him.

He reads, slowly, steadily and with every word as his rage grows stronger and as his magic flings itself angrily against the world he regains himself.

Because even now, even knowing that he is gone from Privet Drive, that he had to flee from Dementors, even then all Sirius and Hermione have to say are words chiding him. They chastise him for leaving the safety of the wards, saying that they would have protected him from the Dementors, not bothering to explain how or why they even got there, only that Dumbledore would handle it.

And then they insist he return, that this is no time to play runaway child.

With trembling but now nimble fingers, Harry tucks these letters into the mokeskin pouch at his neck where his invisibility cloak, his trunk and his wand all reside. Because even though Harry hadn't expected Dementors, he still knew his 'family' well enough to know there was always danger in Privet Drive.

And yet, they insisted he return.

In one swift second, he is back to his Animagus form and takes to the branches, sulking. Hedwig follows soon after, settling herself next to him and with a crooning sound, she begins grooming him. Her large wing fans out for a second before tucking around him in a facsimile of a hug and Harry settles into her side.

'It shouldn't be this hard' Harry thinks with a sigh that comes out like a wail, 'It shouldn't be so hard to be me.'

* * *

Hedwig, it occurs to him, is the closest thing he has to a mother. Another time and Mrs Weasley would have that spot but this form makes him feel close to Hedwig in a way Mrs Weasley isn't.

Ron's mother is lovely and kind and she cares, she cares for Harry and not just the Boy-Who-Lived and he will always adore her for that. But she treats him differently than her children and being so close to Ron, he sees it clearly. Harry sees the way she lets his mistakes slide completely, sees the way she doesn't scold him the way she does Ron and even Hermione to an extent. She adores Harry but treats him rather like a well-meaning guest.

Hedwig though, if she had a human form of her own Harry imagines she would take a spoon to his backside for his yearly adventures. Now, in this form she takes great pleasure in disciplining him the way she knows best and Harry laps up all of it. In his dreams, he imagines Lily Potter taking a secondary form and descending upon the world just to wave her metaphorical finger in his face and a happy chirp comes from him unbidden.

Yes, Hedwig is the closest thing he has to a mother. So when with one crooning hoot she herds him forward, tells him in her own way that she needs to return to the Wizarding world, what could he possibly do but follow.

* * *

Hermione sighed as one of the Weasley twins exclaimed loudly. The library in 12, Grimmauld Place was filled with dark and rather dangerous books, but a library nonetheless. Sirius had pointed out the safe ones and now Hermione spent all her time there, in the one spot where there was a decent amount of sunshine. It helped to keep her mind off things, like Ron having not done any of his homework, the worried whispers about who their new DADA teacher would be, Sirius moping about the house and of course, Harry's disappearance.

He had run off of his volition, that much they knew. Professor Dumbledore had done some magic and detected no other magical presence and so they were looking for her friend, asking around discreetly to see if Tom at the Leaky Cauldron had seen him, if the Knight Bus had taken him as a passenger, if he had found his way to Mrs Figg's fireplace and floo-ed out. And yet, nothing.

Times like this reminded her of how resourceful Harry could be if he just put his mind to it.

Times like this also reminded her of the epic messes that Harry got himself into even when he didn't want to.

One thing was for certain—especially given the letter that had been sent via Hedwig last week with the 'Screw off' written on it in a chicken scratch that took so long to decipher that the impact had been stolen and she hadn't even been hurt by the words—Harry Potter was going to be incredibly angry with them.

"Would you look at that Gred!"

"I say Forge, looks like the lovely Miss Hedwig's gotten herself a _friend!_ "

"What would Harry dear have to say about that?!"

Hermione shut the tome in her hands (carefully, of course) and made her way over to the window out of which the twins were staring. She'd have to keep up with those two hellions, as prefect this year (still a rather giddying thought), it was her responsibility to keep the lot out of trouble and she might as well get a head start on it.

On the lamppost on the pavement outside, Hedwig sat with another bird with her, one that was not an owl.

"That's a peregrine falcon," She said aloud and the twin terrors turned and raised a questioning eyebrow each. "It's a bird of prey, they're known for being the fastest of all animals, clocked at 390 km per hour, their signature move is a high speed dive, they're often used in falconry."

Hermione looked at the bird carefully, recalling everything she knew about them. Her father was an amateur ornithologist and she had read some of his books before, it was just a matter of recalling the information.

It was a very pretty bird. The blue wings were so dark that they looked black, an oddly intense black, not the grey tinged one that was the norm. Even the eyes, they had an oddly green tinge to them with markings around them that made it look like it wore glasses.

"Looks like Harry, doesn't he?" One twin said and the other hmm-ed in agreement. Hermione looked at the bird again and saw what they meant. It only made the next words she spoke funnier, really.

"Maybe the resemblance made her adopt him." Hermione said, amused. "I don't think Peregrine falcons and Snowy owls usually get along but this one's a juvenile." The vertical markings meant juvenile while the adults had horizontal ones if she remembered correctly.

Poor Hedwig, to miss Harry so badly she found a little bird just like him to foster.

How sweet.

* * *

Fred and George Weasley, also known as Gred and Forge Weasley, looked out the window long after Hermione Granger left them to their devices. They watched as Hedwig looked straight at them, conveying with her stare the aloof amusement she always did. They watched as the falcon tried to follow her line of sight only to start whirling its head around as if confused.

The Fidelius charm doesn't affect animals. It affects wizards and the more humanoid 'creatures' and it affects them no matter what form they're in. Whether under Polyjuice or ...some other enchantment.

"Signature move is a high speed dive," Gred repeated Hermione's words and Forge snorted.

"A bird that loves a good Wronksi Feint. "

"How fitting."

"Looks like we have a letter to send to ickle Harry-kins."

"And come up with a good Marauding name as well."

* * *

Harry wailed, not wanting to read the letter Hedwig was carrying for him. It meant turning back to his human form and he hadn't done that since he'd followed her all the way back to London. They were in a tree in Hyde Park, somewhere away from the camera traps and Hedwig kept nudging him to take the letter. Finally, Harry turned back to his human self and took the letter, but stayed up in the tree, his legs sprawled over branches.

Something odd was going on. Hedwig had taken him to these townhouses but they seemed completely mundane, Harry couldn't really see any magical stuff happening.

But then after a few hours he saw Moody of all people. Clearly the hideout was somewhere nearby but where? Moody had seemed to disappear into nowhere and yet there was this niggling thought in his mind that he just couldn't hold on to.

Harry deliberated but figured that maybe the letter would have the answer to his question.

Probably not though, the whole lot seemed to like keeping him in the dark.

When Harry opened the letter, he was shocked. It was Fred and George! They didn't usually write him, that was something Hermione, Ron and Sirius did.

" _Prongs Jr,_

 _Although we suppose we can't call you that anymore, eh little birdie? Do us a favour and read the little piece of paper in the envelope would you. Beware, it has an enchantment on it, it'll go up in flames once it's been read. Be careful now, wouldn't want you to do a Fawkes now, would we?_

 _-Gred and Forge"_

Harry grinned like a lunatic. Finally some answers and of course Fred and George figured it out. Harry was pretty sure those two could end Voldemort all on their own if they really put their mind to it.

Carefully he teased the scrap of paper out of the envelope. He cradled it in his palm so no fire could make its way down the tree. He really liked this one, it had a lovely little hollow where he slept.

" _The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London."_

The paper burst into flames that burnt warm and fast, turning to ash quickly. His palms were going to be sensitive for a while now but Harry was lost in thought as that little niggling thought fell into place.

Because he had seen the doors of the townhouses, 10, 11, 13 and now finally he could put his finger on it, that there had been no 12, Grimmauld Place.

A Fidelius then.

Harry Potter growled. It seemed Dumbledore had learnt nothing from his parents' murder.

* * *

 _Amato Animo Animato Animagus_


End file.
